The White Stone

Standing Stone / Menhir

The White Stone (Standing Stone / Menhir) on The Modern Antiquarian, the UK & Ireland's most popular megalithic community website. 2 images, 2 fieldnotes, 1 weblink, plus information on many more ancient sites nearby and across the UK & Ireland.

Images (click to view fullsize)

Fieldnotes

The stone is easy to spot being on the main road out of Peebles. Parking is also easy.

It is nice that this stone has been respected and cared for all these years. It says something that there was no sign of any graffiti or litter spoiling the stone. I would put the stone at approximately 1metre round.

Well worth looking out for when visiting Peebles - which is a very nice town. (and has an Historic Scotland site - that's another one off the list!) :)

Friday 23/7/04
On the right hand side of the road leading out of Peebles to Innerleithen there is a recess built into the wall to accommodate this massive quartz stone. The sign next to its says that it was an erratic deposited in the ice age and the first written record of the stone was in 1462 when it was used a s a boundary marker for the town. Such an unusual and large quartz stone (about 1m by 70 cm by about 2.5m) would not have gone unnoticed in megalithic times and it’s continuing use as a boundary marker in later times reaffirms this.

Miscellaneous

The old metal sign next to the stone reads;
‘The White Stone. So called because it is a quartz rock believed to have been carried to this location during the ice age. The White Stone is frequently referred to in the records of the burgh of Peebles. It became the spot where visitors were welcomed by the Magistrates on their entry to the town and where parting guests drank from the stirrup cup.’

Links

An entry from Ancient Stones, an online database that covers most of the standing stones, stone circles and other stones found in South East Scotland. Each entry includes details, directions, photograph, folklore, parking and field notes on each location.